Clean Up The Aftermath
by Waywardneko
Summary: The repercussions of a war. Because its a miracle they all survived intact. In body at least.


**Man, can I crank out some angst… So yeah… I really ought to be working on my Bleach time-travel fic, but the nostalgic plot bunny attacked, and I remembered how really **_**dark**_ **this was for a kids show…. and well, made it darker. And more realistic about what happens when you put this much pressure on kids, the whole universe? Really? And this was the lighter cartoon based idea, if I added more in of that the comic had…. urgh… Will's jerk of a father, what can only be described as a rape attempt or two, being captured and tortured and who knows what for a week… And that is only the first three arcs! Their ages should **_**definitely**_ **be higher… There is no way they were not affected by all the trauma. I really would not be surprised if they acquired PTSD or something. So anyway, on with the story.**

Out of all of them, Will was the closest to the edge. The stress of leadership was a heavy burden. Fighting a war is a heavy burden. Having blood on your hands is a heavy burden. The Heart _itself _was a heavy burden. On top of her family life, she was just barely holding onto the edge. Even after everything was over, she _knew_ the peace wouldn't last long. It didn't last time. Though, unlike last time, it tied them together closer than ever. No one else understood anymore. They were not human anymore, they were something _else_. Something _dragon_. Only they could understand the stirring of something _ancient_ and thoroughly _not human_ in their blood. Her family was broken, and that was bad enough before, on top of everything that had happened since she arrived in Heatherfield, it was almost too much. She didn't hate the town anymore, she had come to love it. It was nice, once there was a lull in the action. Since the first time she saw someone _die_, she had horrible nightmares that hadn't stopped yet. The first time she _killed_ someone, she couldn't stop washing her hands for a week. She stopped only then because her mom had started to worry. They must be kept innocent. It's better, so they won't worry. She would never understand. Will grips the chain of the Heart so tightly her knuckles turn white. Staring out her window she sees the flickering of something out of the corner of her eye. By the lamp post, she tenses and lets flickers of power flow into the Heart as it starts to glow from within. An alley cat darts across the road. Nothing. Relax.

She forces herself to un-tense and draws her energy back in. She breathes out a whoosh of air. _Stop it_, she chides herself, _nothing is out there._ But her instincts never turn off these days. Is it _really_ paranoia when they actually _are_ out to get you?

She never had considered suicide seriously. Particularly after she had obtained the Heart. There was always a nagging voice that steered her away, even if she wanted to quit. She was responsible for her group, her world, her universe, the Heart, and every _damn_ attack on any other world she had been to. She could feel the crushing weight at times like this. Matt took it away. She felt lighter in his presence then anywhere else. They never went past kissing, _yet_, but that was enough to have restful sleep for the night. The nightmares were not so bad, then. She took a slow, deep breath. Right then. Sleep.

Irma hid it all. She covered the fear in laughter, the pain in jokes. She never knew her mother, she had 'died in an accident' she was given no other details and pretended to be satisfied with that. Her father remarried and her new stepmother looked so much like what she could barely remember her mother looking like… It hurt, but she pretended she didn't care. Laughed and joked and brushed it off. She had a half brother now. She considered her stepmother her mother, she considered Chris her brother, but she wanted to _know_. The wanted to know what happened that day two days before the funeral. Then everything _else _happened. Someone died, she would laugh and joke, cover up the guilt. Another person she could have saved, another snarky comment, another rather tasteless joke, to remove the sight of the light fading from the eyes of the first person she killed. How much she worried for her family, she would brush it off. Pretend she was checking in on Chris because she wanted to know that he wasn't doing anything stupid, instead of checking to make sure he was still _alive_. Her baths were no longer an hour long because she liked playing in the water, but because a long cold shower took the edge of the adrenaline rush from the latest battle, and numbed her aching muscles. Sometimes, for all she tried, she still felt the Other presence, the dragon. She couldn't pretend that wasn't there, hell even _Chris_ noticed it sometimes, the presence of a _Beast_.

The nightmares were not so bad, she had started practicing lucid dreaming, and with her powers of suggestion, she could alter them to something more mild. She fought with Cornelia because the both of them needed to vent. Cornelia was one of her best friends, she _understood _the anxious fear for her family. They could argue without feeling bad about it, or hurting each other. The whole group was always on high alert now. She slept with a nightlight still, her brother thought it was childish, her parents tried to remove it. It would stay. _When _something attacked, she would like to see it's ugly mug. She now carried a can of mace everywhere, and asked her father to learn how to use a gun. She had a knife when not at school holstered to her leg. She would not be caught unawares. Bury the sadness in laughter, and the pain in jokes. Don't let them worry over something they can neither understand nor fight.

Taranee was no longer scared. Well, actually, she was always scared now, but nothing could faze her anymore. Instead of running, now she attacked reflexively. Her psychic abilities kept the nightmares mostly at bay, until she was too exhausted to keep the mental shields up all the time. She jumped at every sound, no one could see her tense, but she did. She reflexively followed any movements, it was too risky not to. She worked and researched more than ever, looking up any old myths and legends that she could find. It was no use being surprised by something if she could already know everything about it. She carried matches in her pocket, just in case. No use wasting energy to conjure flame when she could make it naturally and then manipulate it. Now that there was a lull, she didn't really know what to do, so she went back to the books. She had _killed _someone, well countless monsters too, but a _thinking,_ sentient being. She had seen people die. Study, take your mind off things. Throw yourself into work. She was a straight A student, she didn't _need _to study more, but she did. When something happened, and something _always _happens, she would know everything by heart so she could focus more time into strategy and hunting to take down the _latest _threat to the universe. She could sometimes feel the dragon she called on to protect the universe. It would become more prominent when she got angry. It was fire, and it wanted to burn.

Her older brother had been targeted before, so she discreetly checked up on him, if he didn't make it home she would get progressively more worried. She sometimes lit a fire in the dead of night to burn energy so she could fall asleep. But not without putting up tripwires and locking her window. She was a light sleeper now, all of them were. Taking something for random insomnia would dull her ability to be alert enough to react to danger. Taranee fiddles with a pen and looks anxiously at the flickering lights across the street. While she was up she might as well study some more, she wasn't yet able to recite the history book word-for-word….

Cornelia had started to get overprotective. She had a lot more free time now that she wasn't fighting monsters every few minutes, she started spending more time with Lillian. Lillian had been targeted before, she wasn't going to let it happen again. Lillian was rather disgruntled about it, but better to spend time with the brat then to discover her dead at some psycho's feet. She ice skated more now. It was a good way to vent the pent-up energy she now had far too much of. She had won a few more gold medals in it, and scouts might start taking notice. She carried herself like a warrior now, not like a child or a little girl. She moved with grace, the grace a mother wolf had when she defended what was _hers_. Things were winding down to… something… Normal. But she didn't belong in the normal now. She wasn't a teenager now, she had grown up, and became more than human. A dragon. A dragon in a human body, people _noticed_, they backed out of her way, they could sense an apex predator now, but they were not sure what it _was_. It stalked on the outskirts of her consciousness. They had touched the dragons and gotten burned. She didn't look different, but she had a _presence_, all of them did. It made people wary, particularly if they tried. The nightmares sucked, but she could deal with them. She was too proud to ask for help, and even if she did, what would she ask? She couldn't talk, they couldn't speak of their duty, and no one _else_ could understand. Only They could. The rest of the guardians. She kept a variety of strange plants in her room, just in case.

Irma and her fought, not because they hated each other, but because they each knew that the other would be ok with it. They knew each other better than anyone else now. They _needed_ the conflict. Particularly now that they had no other outlet. It kept them sane enough to function.

Cornelia walks to the bus stop, keeping a sharp eye on Lillian. She fingers the wooden knife she made herself that she kept in her sleeve. No, she wouldn't take chances anymore. Even if it seemed ok, she would still make sure. Paranoia had kept them alive, something would happen again, and she wouldn't let it surprise her.

Hay Lin _seemed _the most ok. She seemed the least affected by the pressure, the killing, the death, the fighting. But really, she wasn't. She smiled and laughed, and appeared really rather childish and innocent. But she ignored the pain, so others wouldn't worry. She had killed first. Underneath all the cheer, was really unresolved sadness and grief. Maybe if she had been quicker… She had no siblings, just a grandmother. She was very protective over her, too. She was the most affected by Nerissa because Nerissa went after her with great prejudice. How dare Yan Lin's granddaughter be happy? She knew her duty. The power of Air required you to get…. _creative _to put down enemies. In the midst of battle, an intricate dance, beautiful, but _deadly_. She was either harmless or deadly, no inbetween. The Dragon was quietest for her, but then, she had dragon's blood already, and she had gotten used to it. Granddaughter of a former guardian. Her paintings became darker and were a way of venting what she had experienced. She had a whole sketchbook locked away from prying eyes, filled with horrors of the war she had drawn away. Artists had tortured souls, but they hung on. Art is a wonderful vent for pain, but she missed the adrenaline rush. She had taken to walking invisible on high up surfaces, not to jump, but for the altitude rush, the danger. She decided it wasn't healthy, but it was better than picking fights in an alleyway to keep her from had 'earned their break', the Oracle said. They were just children after all, but they really weren't children anymore. They were something more, and something less. They _needed_ the fight now, they _didn't_ belong where everyone else did not know the truth. They didn't _belong _where it was _quiet_, and _peaceful_, and _normal_. The dragon yearned for the sky, yearned for the fight… And… She didn't know what she wanted. She had put on the mask so much she could be happy at will. She _was_ the chipper one, afterall. She did feel naturally happy when she was with Eric, but that was fleeting, he was so _innocent, _also. The question is was she _really _happy? No. No, not at all. Nightmares were random and often, flashbacks of battles were even more so. It was a great and terrible thing, her imagination. She could recall everything so _vividly._ They did _not_ come out of everything unscathed. They had _changed_. Normal was boring for them, they couldn't just _go back_ to the way it was. Not anymore.

A wind whooshed over the top of the bridge she had climbed to the top of. Her hands were numb from the cold metal, and her knees were scuffed, though she could not see them. Cars drove below her. She looked up at the night sky one last time and climbed the ladder back down. No, they really weren't quite all right at all.

**~Waywardneko**


End file.
